Kogi Election: How PDP goofed by asking INEC Chairman and AGF to resign.

Debo Popoola
The Peoples Democratic Party has asked for the resignation of INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu and the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami. The party accused Malami of influencing the decision of the INEC by allowing the APC to substitute its candidate in the inconclusive Kogi state governorship election.
In a statement signed by the party’s spokesperson, Olisah Metuh, the party said it was shocked that INEC, a supposedly independent electoral umpire, could allow itself to succumb to the antics of the APC by following the unlawful directive of an obviously partisan AGF to substitute a candidate in the middle of the ballot process.
The statement says: “We are all aware that the two legal documents guiding INEC in the conduct of elections; the Constitution and the Electoral Act, have provisions for electoral exigencies as well as empower the electoral body to fully take responsibility for any of its actions or inaction without undue interference from any quarters whatsoever.
“We are therefore at a loss as to which sections of these two relevant laws, INEC and the AGF relied on in arriving at their bizarre decision to substitute a dead candidate in an on-going election even after the timelines for such has elapsed under all the rules.”
This statement, like most of the reactionary statements by PDP, only shows that the party is really struggling with its new status as the opposition party.
The late APC gubernatorial candidate Abubakar Audu died on the Election Day. After news of him leading at the polls has already circulated, INEC later announced the election inconclusive. Some reports in the media said Audu had a heart failure after hearing the announcement by INEC.
Although the constitution does not envisage such occurrence, but this is where discretion comes to play. Since the main contestant chosen by the APC is late, an average mind would come to the conclusion that the party should choose another representative, even if there is no constitution to back this up. But constitution is man-made. Since man himself is not perfect, the constitution written by him cannot be expected to be perfect.
If PDP thinks antagonizing every decision taken by the Federal Government or its agencies means playing opposition, then they need to up their antes by doing a thorough research on proper way of playing the opposition. Nigeria needs much more from them than playing politics with sensitive issues as death of a prominent man.